Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a method of searching for a peripheral device.
Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-56117 discloses a method of detecting another printer by short distance wireless communication if a print job in a print disable state is detected.
In this specification, a peripheral device on a network is specified using short distance wireless communication such as NFC (Near Field Communication). Also in this specification, an arrangement is assumed in which, in order to specify the peripheral device on the network, an information processing apparatus obtains information containing the address such as the IP address of the peripheral device in short distance wireless communication and communicates with the peripheral device using the obtained address. However, the following problem arises in this arrangement.
That is, the IP address of the peripheral device is not necessarily fixed because it may be allocated by a DHCP server or the like, and thus an IP address obtained using short distance wireless communication and an IP address actually allocated to the peripheral device may not match. Even if an IP address is allocated statically, an administrator of the peripheral device may change the IP address manually. Furthermore, an address may fail to be obtained even by using short distance wireless communication in the first place. Assume a case in which an NFC seal tag is used as an example. If an initial setting for the NFC seal tag has not been completed, an IP address is not saved in the tag, and thus the IP address of a printer cannot be obtained even if tapping a mobile terminal. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-56117 does not consider that a printer to which the NFC seal tag is attached is specified in such print disable case.